1. Field
One or more example aspects relate to a device for preventing sudden unintended acceleration, and more particularly, to a device for preventing sudden unintended acceleration of automobiles using an engine controller and a separate controller for preventing sudden unintended acceleration.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, sudden unintended acceleration denotes that a vehicle unexpectedly moves forward or backward while a driver does not manipulate an accelerator pedal or presses a brake pedal.
Reviewing incident reports up to now, sudden unintended acceleration occurs only in vehicles with automatic transmissions both globally and domestically. When engine power was controlled by a throttle valve connected through cables, there was almost no sudden unintended acceleration incident. However, as electronic throttle strategies were introduced and various kinds of electronic devices were increasingly used in vehicles, the number of sudden unintended acceleration incidents began to increase.
There are two conventional techniques for preventing sudden unintended acceleration, which are employed by automotive manufacturing companies. This first is a technique for limiting engine torque using internal logic of an engine controller when an accelerator pedal and a brake pedal are pressed simultaneously for a certain time. The second is a monitoring logic technique in which when the required torque of an engine is calculated by the amount of press of an accelerator pedal through the control of an internal error, an engine controller calculates required torque through a separate redundant route, compares the required torque calculated through the redundant route with the required torque calculated through the normal route, and limits engine power when a result of the comparison is outside a tolerance range. However, the number of sudden unintended acceleration incidents has not decreased although the sudden-unintended-acceleration prevention techniques are applied to block obvious mistakes of drivers and calculation errors of the engine controller.
In the United States, a new law was legislated, and according to the law, vehicles are forced to be equipped with a Brake Override System (BOS), which is a technique in which when a brake pedal and an accelerator pedal are pressed at the same time, the brake pedal is given priority. Also, in South Korea, the current trend is to apply the BOS to new vehicles.
As such, despite many attempts made to prevent incidents caused by sudden unintended acceleration of vehicles, an optimal solution has not yet been found. Furthermore, currently developed devices for preventing sudden unintended acceleration are not verified completely and are manufactured with expensive components and a complicated structure.